Julian Avery

Name: Julian Avery

Gender: Male

Age: 18

Grade: 12th

School: Bayview Secondary School

Hobbies and Interests: Julian loves government and politics, both the student kind and the regular kind. He's a distance runner on the track team, often runs in his free time to clear his head. Julian is a big fan of slam poetry and spoken word, both watching and writing. He also enjoys partying, socializing, and meeting new people.

Appearance: Julian is half-white (on his father's side), half-African American (on his mother's side), with a relatively light complexion that's sometimes mistaken for Hispanic. He has a handsome, boyish face, with large, friendly brown eyes that complement his seemingly ever-present grin. His black hair frequently changes length and style, but is currently cut at a medium length, styled into well-kept ringlets that end an inch or so above his shoulders. Julian stands 6'0” and weighs 180 lbs., with an athletic but not particularly impressive build. Julian dresses fairly fashionably and frequently alternates wearing elegant button-down shirts with trendy t-shirts. He prefers loose-fitting clothing (especially pants) and is rarely seen not wearing a pair of snazzy black loafers. On the day of the abduction, Julian was wearing a grey pullover cap, a black Lupe Fiasco shirt with a gold design, a pair of baggy jeans, and of course, his loafers.

Biography: Julian Avery seems at first glance to be very much a product of his parents, and the description does have some truth to it. His father, Paul Avery, is a professor of political science at Macalaster and the founder of a small political consulting firm. Growing up, Julian was often privy to dinner table conversations between Paul and his clients, generally hungry young politicians who eventually met varying levels of success or failure. A curious young boy, Julian frequently kept up with the fortunes of his father's clients. Though he was blissfully ignorant of the actual political process, he soon came to a conclusion: those candidates whom he met and liked would win more often than those whom he met and disliked. From this observation, Julian learned what would eventually become one of his core principles: the only talent that matters is the talent for making friends.

Julian's mother, Beatrice Avery, met his father at Macalaster, from where she graduated with a degree in social sciences. Since then she's become a community organizer in the twin cities area, especially dedicated to her church group. She made sure Julian attended every Sunday during his childhood, but Julian's growing love of their church meant she didn't have to do any forcing. Julian learned about the Christian God in terms of spreading love, joy, and energy through the revival-style services, and made many friends at the church's youth group. Around middle school Julian's curiosity drove him to try out attending other churches, but everything else felt like dreary candle-lit monotony compared to what he knew. He began to realize that if he had grown up with a less friendly and energetic image of God, he may have lost his faith somewhere along the line. From this, Julian learned another of his principles: the best way to make friends is to make everyone else feel happy and liked.

Over the course of high school, Julian became a talented student (especially excelling in history and government classes), and did his best to become popular and beloved, and tries to spend at least a little time at every student club he can find. Though he usually drifts away after a few meetings, he's found success with student government and enjoys going to creative writing club every week. Julian joined the track team in his freshman year, and since then has developed into a competent but not particularly spectacular distance runner. He participates in clubs and sports half out of a desire to have something on his resume for college, and half because of their use as social outlets.

In present day, Julian loves interacting with others, and tries to strike up at least a passing friendship with every one of his classmates. Since he's very adept at the social game and in particular very good at reading people, this often succeeds, but obviously there are some exceptions. Some classmates are just anti-social and don't particularly respond to his attempts, and others “see through him”, in a sense, thinking of him as a glib, glad-handing politician who doesn't really like any of the people he's pretending to befriend. In a sense, this is true: Julian is quick to judge people mentally, and often will pretend to like someone whom he considers a terrible person. This is partially motivated because he hates confrontation and just wants everyone to like him, but also because of the teachings he's picked up at church.

Julian's faith is very important to him, and he considers evangelizing a fundamental duty, but he also knows that those who do it openly and brazenly come off like self-righteous pricks. Instead, Julian hopes that by acting like a nice person and doing good things while in the presence of his more asshole-ish “friends”, he'll be a positive example and show them how they should be living. In a few scattered cases, it's worked, and he's helped some classmates turn over a new leaf, so to speak—one such example would be his ex-girlfriend and current friend Charlie DuClare, whom he helped become a kinder person over a year-long on-and-off relationship. In some more cases, peoples' personalities have changed for the better due to reasons completely unrelated to Julian, and Julian's sort of mentally taken credit for these changes. For example, Julian firmly believes his passive influence is what helped JJ Sturn change for the better, but the truth is obviously very different. Due to these successes and “successes”, Julian firmly believes his system of evangelizing works, and that it just needs time.

Advantages: Julian is very friendly and outgoing, so he's likely to have many allies in SotF. His talent at reading people's emotions and intentions could help him discern the truth from the frequently-told lies on the SotF island. Also, Julian is in rather good shape and has excellent endurance, which would help him with the physical aspects of the competition.

Disadvantages: Julian lacks any of the “big three” of SotF advantages: he knows no martial arts, has no firearms experience, and has no knowledge of survival skills. Also, his ever-present concern for social matters will probably make him unwilling to kill, meaning he could end up betrayed and dead as soon as someone doesn't buy his lines of friendship.

Designated Number: Male student no. 098

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Designated Weapon: Jian

Conclusion: Well, B098 should be amusing, if nothing else. Friendly, outgoing evangelist? Pacifist on top of that? What could possibly go wrong? No, B098's a sure shot for winner. Hahaha. No, I expect he'll be dead by the end of the third day, when alliances start to encounter reality.

'The above biography is as written by Jonny. No edits or alterations to the author's original work have been made.'

Evaluations
Handled by: Jonny

Kills: Omar Burton, Alice Boucher

Killed By: Maxwell Lombardi

Collected Weapons: Jian (Assigned weapon), Beretta 93R (from Omar Burton)

Allies: Mizore Soryu, Raidon Naoko

Enemies: None

Mid-game Evaluation:

Post-Game Evaluation:

Memorable Quotes:
 * “Biggest monster dies at the end of the book.”
 *  “I start thinking to myself, every few minutes, 'Why haven't I shot this guy yet?' And maybe I have an answer. Maybe it's even a good one. Don't matter. Eventually I shoot you. Or I don't, cause you get to your gun first. Or maybe I just get so caught up in that dilemma that I don't notice whatever murderer creeping up on us till we're both dead. It's wouldn't be a team. It never would've been a team.”

Threads
Below is a list of threads that contain Julian, in chronological order.

Pre-Game:
 * Vaulting
 * Pumping Iron

V4:
 * Resolve
 * Bump in the Night
 * Can't Fall Down
 * No Turning Back
 * I Got a Hand, So I Got a Fist
 * Walk Away
 * Not What I Was Expecting
 * Broken Like the Sun
 * -.-- -.-- --..
 * The Dead Flag Blues
 * Riddles of Monsters
 * Radio Nowhere
 * You Already Know How This Ends

Your Thoughts
''Whether you were a fellow handler in SOTF or just an avid reader of the site, we'd like to know what you thought about Julian Avery. What did you like, or dislike, about the character? Let us know here!''
 * Here's another really great character. Like a few others, I've actually explained before why I like Julian so much, so this won't be as in depth. Julian's a legitimately funny character. He stood out for this in early pregame despite having only a couple threads, and his attitude carried through to V4 unchanged. It also helped disguise that Julian was very deluded and dangerous, having talked himself into believing his own hype. He set himself up as a moral judge without any real right to do so, and then carried out his own idea of justice as best he could.

On the whole, quality-wise, I'd say Julian actually is a bit weaker than one of Jonny's other kids, but Julian really plays off of the setting of SOTF in a chilling and unique way. He's not a good guy, but he's got all the charm and self-image of one. V4 was the version where player hunters really exploded as a trend, too, often being presented as a more moral option than flat out playing. Julian was right there proving why that wasn't the case. He's a great read just on the level of being an entertaining character, but he also forms a very nice commentary on heroism in SOTF and the situation the kids find themselves in. - MurderWeasel